Etymatching the ACES Spelling Bee Words

Submitted by Dawn McIlvain Stahl on Fri, 03/21/2014 - 5:01pm

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With 12 brave participants, 40 observers, over 130 words, and almost three dozen thrilling rounds of spelling under pressure, the American Copy Editors Society spelling bee was a fun kickoff to the ACES conference in Vegas Wednesday night.

The final contestants, Lisa McLendon and Amy Goldstein, went back and forth for almost 20 rounds before former Scripps National Spelling Bee participant Goldstein correctly spelled mountebank and insouciance for the win.

The event raised money for the ACES Education Fund. And, as contestants asked for clarifying sentences, definitions, parts of speech, and languages of origin, it raised the idea of putting some of the words into this week’s word game.

Etymatching the Spelling Bee: Match the word from the ACES spelling bee with its appropriate etymology snippet. [Difficulty level: moderate to difficult]

Word list

bailiwick bourgeoisie chameleon hobbledehoy imbroglio

impecunious impuissance legerdemain logarithmic louche

maraschino mellifluous mnemonics mucilaginous obstreperous

peripatetic peroration proboscis quintessence rheumatism

sauerkraut shenanigans slumgullion surreptitious zeitgeist

Etymologies

first known use in the mid-1880s in San Francisco and Sacramento; origin unknown

mid-1300s; from the Greek for “on the ground” and “lion”

1400s; from the Latin for “honey” and “flow”

1590s; from the Latin for “money” or “property”

1400s; from the Latin for “fifth essence”

1600; from the Latin for “make a noise against”

1400s; from the Latin for “to snatch” and “from under” or “secretly”

1600s; from the Greek for “a discharge from the body”

late 1700s; from Italian for a bitter wild cherry

1400s; from the Latin for “to end” and “to speak or plead”

1400s; includes Middle English for “village”

1600s; from the German for “sour” and “greens” or “cabbage”

1890; origin unknown; perhaps English dialect for “slime” and “mud”

mid-1500s; origin unknown; perhaps from an elf character in German folklore and the Middle French for worthless, untamed, “from the hedge.”

early 1600s; coined by Scottish mathematician John Napier from Greek for “proportion, ratio” and “number”

early 1600s; from the Greek for “forward” and “to feed”

1400s; from Middle French for “no power”

early 1400s; from Latin for “musty, moldy”

1750; from Italian for “entangle”

1721; from the Greek for “memory”

1819; from French for “cross-eyed, squinting”

1640s; from 1400s Old French for “disciple of Aristotle” (who walked around while teaching)